I don’t think anyone warns you properly about the surreal quality of your first parent-teacher meeting when your child is in junior infants.<\/p>\n
For the uninitiated, it is nearly impossible to say how it feels to walk into a room where someone has spent two months observing your child more closely than you have since they were a newborn. It\u2019s a strange, vulnerable little moment, like handing over your heart and hoping it comes back with only minor corrections in red pen.<\/p>\n
I arrived at the school already a bit rattled. It had been one of those mornings when I found myself spreading butter on the counter instead of the toast and just had to accept that my brain had gone on annual leave without notice.<\/p>\n
As I parked up outside Number One\u2019s school, I realised I was now wearing the lunch I had attempted to scoff while in transit from my own school to Number One\u2019s. I cursed myself for having gone for the coleslaw, which was now trailing down the front of my coat. I debated going home to get changed but decided it was better to be on time and filthy than late and well-presented, so in I went, already feeling like I was getting an F for effort.<\/p>\n
Of course, the teachers were lovely, welcoming, and quick to put even the most neurotic parents like myself at ease. By the time I sat on the tiny chair in the classroom, my nerves were jangling. There\u2019s something humbling about sitting on furniture that cuts off the circulation to your legs. You suddenly feel about five years old again: small, unsure, hoping to be the best girl in the class.<\/p>\n
The teacher was warm and calm in that way junior infant teachers have perfected, like they\u2019ve made peace with the chaos of the universe.<\/p>\n
It is for this reason I have always said if I were ever trapped on a desert island I would want a primary teacher in my midst, because they would be the person to maintain calm when tempers flared and could also fashion fun Christmas decorations out of coconuts.<\/p>\n
She started with: \u201cHe\u2019s getting on well.\u201d It\u2019s such a simple sentence but I nearly burst into tears right there. The relief of hearing your child is OK is overwhelming. I spend so much time worrying that I\u2019m missing something, that there\u2019s some invisible checklist all the other parents have mastered and I\u2019m just cobbling things together with toast crumbs and blind faith.<\/p>\n
She showed me his little workbook. The drawings were chaotic and colourful, full of wild lines and determination. I looked at them and thought, \u2018I know this child. I know this fierce, imaginative little scribbler.\u2019 But hearing her say, \u201cHis colouring in is really coming on,\u201d gave me a whole different perspective. I\u2019d been looking at this messy enthusiasm as something I needed to tidy up. But to her, it meant something positive. Something developing.<\/p>\n
Then we talked about the social side of things. I instantly tensed, because this is the bit I worry about the most. Will he be happy? Will he be kind? Will he feel safe enough to be himself? These things keep me awake far more than his phonics or cutting skills ever could.<\/p>\n
He gets on well with the class, she continued, and commented on how all the pupils are being lovely to one another. Lovely. What a beautiful word \u2014 because, like most parents, I just want him to be gentle in the world, to feel held by it and to hold others in return. And there it was, a tiny reassurance from someone who sees him in ways I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I waited for her to list off a few challenges or areas we could work on but she stayed on the positives, repeatedly telling me this was all about how well the children were getting on and making sure they were happy and that we, as parents, were happy too. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that we don\u2019t have to decide on whether or not he should give honours maths a go just yet.<\/p>\n
But hearing her talk about it without judgement, gently, kindly, made me realise how much of my parenting anxiety isn\u2019t really about him. It\u2019s about me. About being afraid of getting it wrong. You think you\u2019re there to discuss the child, but you\u2019re being held up to the light as well.<\/p>\n
The discussion about his phonics and doing music in school had me biting my lip. Because, as parents, we all realise in these moments that they have a whole other life without you now. Realising they have whole worlds now that you only glimpse in passing, it is almost impossible not to feel the big, complicated emotions of it all. According to the teacher, he is a big fan of a microphone, hardly surprising given his father\u2019s love of centre stage.<\/p>\n
The fact that the meeting was conducted through Irish had me happy that I had managed to hold my own, as I have been working extra hard to brush up on my Irish to keep up with my five-year-old, who, thanks to his wonderful school and me blaring Kneecap on occasion, is now spouting Irish more than English these days.<\/p>\n
Walking back out towards my car, I spot the coleslaw on my coat. Before I self-flagellate, I catch the thought and remind myself that, like kids, parents are on a learning journey too. As my inner junior infant teacher is reassuring my 42-year-old self that these things happen, I bump into one of Number One\u2019s tiny friends, who kindly points out that my jumper has been on inside out the whole time.<\/p>\n
Oh dear, I say inwardly, knowing you only get one chance to make a first impression. Still, I\u2019d like to think I bagged an A for effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I don’t think anyone warns you properly about the surreal quality of your first parent-teacher meeting when your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20644,20645,61,60,756,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-182173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-julie-jay","9":"tag-parenting-school-children","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-parenting-advice","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}